Shedding New Light on a Storied Architectural Tradition
Winning entry by Heike Hanada with Benedict Tonon
It comes as no surprise that the aesthetic sensibilities of the Bauhaus informed the design schemes of virtually all of the finalists. Clean, rectilinear volumes are prevalent, as is minimalist detailing, rational structure, and a modernist material palate of steel, glass and concrete. The winning design by Hanada is no exception to this trend, but it sets itself ahead of its peers with its sense of refinement. It is a design of strikingly bold simplicity, elegant minimalism, and evocative materiality.
Shedding New Light on a Storied Architectural Tradition
Winning entry by Heike Hanada with Benedict Tonon
It comes as no surprise that the aesthetic sensibilities of the Bauhaus informed the design schemes of virtually all of the finalists. Clean, rectilinear volumes are prevalent, as is minimalist detailing, rational structure, and a modernist material palate of steel, glass and concrete. The winning design by Hanada is no exception to this trend, but it sets itself ahead of its peers with its sense of refinement. It is a design of strikingly bold simplicity, elegant minimalism, and evocative materiality.
Set on a park slope, the building is positioned as a freestanding “solitary object,” a single, rectangular volume intended as a strong iconic form. Flanking the museum, an oblong reflecting pool on a simple raised plaza is used as a device to “mesh” the built landscape into the surrounding urban context. The pool is shallow, only 30 centimeters deep, allowing children to use it in the summer and for ice-skating in the winter.
The building represents a “monolithic sculpture in space,” facilitated by a façade with alluring transparent qualities. Over a monolithic shell of cast concrete, opaque satined glass panels affixed with metal brackets freely float over the building surface, punctuated irregularly by a screen of horizontal etched black lines. At night, narrow strips of OLED foil placed behind the glass will illuminate the facade with an ethereal glow. With the exception of an exposed concrete base, this layered glass skin covers the entire museum volume, diffusing the hard lines of the monolithic building volume and creating an intriguing relationship between solid and transparent masses.
The interior takes a similarly simple approach, its six floors featuring generous open gallery spaces that appealed to the jury for their flexibility. A white, minimally detailed interior allows the objects and exhibits of the Bauhaus collection to take center stage.
Successful minimalist design is hard to pull off, particularly on such a large scale. And such a design is made or broken by its level of detailing. Heike Hanada and Benedict Tonon, architects as well as professors, are both thoughtful designers with an inspired attention to detail and inherent academic rigor, so it is with an admirable but not unfounded faith thar the the jury selected such a strikingly yet deceptively simple design. (Hanada is not new to design competition accolades. In 2007, she won first prize for an expansion of the Stockholm Public Library: see Competitions Volume 17, Number 4. Unfortunately, this project was put on hold in 2009.)
Interestingly, the winning design was initially positioned in third place after the March 15 jury session. At the time, the museum volume was clad only in textured white concrete – a minimalist cube that seemed a bit too simplistic. Jury feedback and an extra few months of refinement allowed for Hanada and Tonon to turn a good project into a great one. The result is a daringly simple design rendered exceptional through its refined expression of tectonics and careful attention to craftsmanship.
With an excited design selected for the New Bauhaus Museum and a grand opening set for 2015, Weimar is poised to have its important Bauhaus legacy pushed to the forefront of the city. Upon congratulating the winners of the competition, Thuringian Minister of Culture and Foundation Board Chairman Christoph Matschie said it best: “The Bauhaus is now finally being provided with a fitting location at its Weimar cradle. Once again, the Bauhaus will become a symbol of reawakening in the time to come. The building of the museum is providing an important impulse for the entire development of the city of Weimar.”